Traditionally, pizzas have been made at restaurants by mixing dough ingredients, rolling and shaping the dough into a round disc, placing various toppings on the dough, and then baking the pizza to completion. However, in many restaurants, there is a need to produce pizza in a more timely fashion due to the high volume of pizza ordered and the customers' expectations of quick service. An alternate method that has been used to speed up the pizza-making process is to obtain frozen dough from a centralized source, thus eliminating the mixing step and reducing the time required to make the pizza in the restaurant.
Baking pizza crust dough from “scratch” or frozen dough requires a relatively long baking time. This is particularly true for certain specialty pizzas, such as deep-dish style pizzas. Furthermore, due to variances in the method by which the dough is formed, the resulting pizza crusts may have an inconsistent texture and taste. Moreover, when raw dough is made or when frozen dough is thawed, the dough must be used within a relatively short period of time.